Thursday, September 30, 2010

The foundational principle of a free society is individual rights. We must fully understand that we are endowed with our rights by virtue of our very humanity. Rights are not given to us by leaders, the popular vote, or even a constitution. They can be violated only by force. We have permitted the constant violation of our rights for too long. It is now time to take action. How will you even the score?

Why are the inhabitants of Noah’s ark the only people to survive the flood?

I’m willing to ignore the fact that there isn’t enough water on Earth to flood every surface, even if both poles completely melted. After all, through God, all things are possible. But my question is: why did no one else survive? Did Noah have the only boat in the whole world? Why didn’t some fishermen who could survive at sea for weeks also live to see the waters recede? Were their ships perhaps destroyed by God?

There had certainly been plenty of de facto anarchists before the European anarchist milieu began to arise at the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s — most notably throughout prehistory. Max Stirner was not only one of the first to elaborate a consistently anarchist theoretical orientation; he was also the most sophisticated and important anarchist critic of philosophy then and since. Nevertheless, his influence both within and without the anarchist milieu has always been extremely controversial. Stirner´s descriptive, phenomenological egoism and absolute refusal of any and all forms of enslavement have been a perennial source of embarrassment for would—be anarchist moralists, ideologues, and politicians of all persuasions (especially leftists, but also including individualists and others). By clearly and openly acknowledging that every unique individual always makes her or his own decisions and cannot avoid the choices of self—possession or self—alienation and enslavement presented at each moment, Stirner scandalously exposes every attempt not only by reactionaries, but by self—proclaimed radicals and alleged anarchists to recuperate rebellion and channel it back into new forms of alienation and enslavement. In Der Einzige und sein Eigentum Stirner has harsh criticisms of those who attempt to legislate slavery through the imposition of compulsory morality, ideologists who attempt to justify submission to the political state and capitalist economy (or equivalent institutional forms), and politicians who ride herd on the rabble in an attempt to keep everyone in line. Throughout their history, Marxist ideologists, militarists, and politicians have treated Stirner as the arch—anarchist. But even within the anarchist milieu, from Proudhon to Bakunin, from Kropotkin to Faure, from Maximoff to Arshinov, and especially amongst the rankand—file ideologues of the anarcho—left throughout the twentieth century, the words of Max Stirner have been anathema—or worse!

Still, (and quite infuriatingly to anarcho—leftists) there has always been a minority of spirited radicals, including the undomesticated and undisciplined uncontrollables among the anarchists, who have heeded Stirner´s warnings and criticisms, refusing to allow any words, doctrines, or institutions to dominate them. As Stirner proclaimed, "Nothing is more to me than myself!" This clearly implies that I am only free when I choose how to live my own life. Politicians, economists, ideologists, priests, philosophers, cops, and every other con artist with or without official papers, plans, and/or bombs and guns: get the fuck out of our lives! And that includes any fake anarchists who think they can pull the wool over our eyes!

From Bill Anderson at LRC Blog: For the most part, however, people really are in denial. They seem to believe that all that is needed is to raise taxes on the wealthy, and everything will be as before.

I should start this off with a fact most readers of this blog may be shocked to know. Brace yourself. No seriously, hold onto something and get ready:

I don’t think anyone should take away your guns. Shocking, I know.

Why would I think guns should be confiscated? It’s basically a losing battle, the metallic equivalent to the war on drugs. Perhaps if people knew that I believe meth, crack and heroin should be legal (and they should), it would come as no surprise.

What I find particularly amusing and telling of the whole gun culture is the aggressive reaction one receives if one even suggests that you would be better off not buying guns.

“Guns save lives you pusillanimous piece of statist trash! More people die because of police beatings than from murder by gun!”

Doctors save lives, guns take lives. Thousands die from murder every year in the US, and the most commonly used weapon is a gun. Compare this to just under 400 deaths caused by police abuse. As a comparison, almost 700 people die from accidents related to guns every year.

Now, resist the urge to ignore what I have to say, because I still have no interest in outlawing guns. I’m just trying to put the ridiculous claims of gun advocates in a realistic perspective. Guns don’t make you safer, it’s a statistical fact. I’m sorry. They may make you feel better, in the same way a blanket makes a child feel secure, though a blanket won’t go off accidentally if you sleep with it under your pillow.

But let’s go back to heroin, crack and meth. If those three drugs were legalized tomorrow, would you run out and buy some heroin just to exercise your right as an American to purchase some? If your pal just opened a new shop, would you purchase some meth for him? If you had a tiny dick, would you smoke crack to forget about it?

Yes, it would be legal, but you have to ask yourself: are these decisions in your best interest?

“I have a right to protect my family.”

Who said anything about rights or protection? I don’t care if you buy a gun and have a family, but you should know that a gun you buy is eight times more likely to shoot you, a family member, or a friend than it is to be used in defense of your home and loved ones against an intruder you don’t know.

And I’m not even talking accidents, here. In fact, nine times out of ten, a murder victim was a family member or close friend… wait a minute. Are you all buying guns to protect yourselves from your loved ones? And here I was thinking it was to protect your loved ones from crack addicts, meth heads, and heroin junkies…

“Listen you progressive liberal left-wing socialist commie pinko statist government goon, you don’t know me or my situation, and I’ve owned guns my whole life. I’m 158 years old. I’ve never committed a crime, nor have I accidentally shot someone. I took the time to learn how to properly use my gun, so fuck off!”

Why would anyone oppose the right to bear arms for someone harboring so much anger, right?

But in all seriousness, I’m curious: how does a gun protect you when you’re asleep? How can a gun protect your home when you’re away? Would carrying a gun on your person prevent someone from coming up behind you on the street and hitting you in the back of the neck, where the skull meets the spinal cord, knocking you unconscious?

After they rabbit punch you, they’re just going to take your gun, which I honestly doubt they’ll use to commit more crime, probably just to sell… for meth, heroin or crack, which would be cheaper if only it was legal… but I digress.

I couldn’t agree more that gun owners are more likely to kill someone with their car (I hope accidentally) than with their gun (which is usually not accidental). I know with relative certainty that most guns will not be used to commit a crime, let alone wound or kill someone. In fact, most guns just collect dust, though hopefully not literally. They should be cleaned on a regular basis, and frankly I hope you use your gun from time to time.

Go hunting. I don’t even care if you kill a condor. Who needs a bird that big. I bet its turds would dent your car on impact. Hell, follow it back to its nest, then kill it, take its eggs, and make an omelet from the mother and babies. I really don’t give a shit.

If hunting isn’t your thing, go to the range. Take out some of that aggression while picturing your boss, your spouse, your kids, your parents, the guy at work who gets your name wrong, the asshole in front of you who just sat there through the green turn arrow and made you have to wait through a whole new cycle, the liberal bloggers who want to take your manhood away by making you use a real weapon like a bat, or a sword, or an axe…

Just know that you’re a pawn on the billion dollar gun industry’s board. There’s more guns than there are people in America, but over half of homes don’t have a gun. In fact, the overwhelming majority of guns are owned by just 10-15% of the population. Almost half of gun owners own both a handgun and a long-barrel firearm.

I don’t point this out to suggest, “Oh no, people are stockpiling an arsenal!” I say it to point out that the gun industry relies on a loyal base of consumers to purchase their several-hundred dollar products. It would be dumb to buy a TV and never turn it on, but it’s my impression that many gun owners do just that with their firearms.

If you plan to use a gun or two or three or a baker’s dozen, then by all means buy them. If you want to feel secure, have the doors and windows to your house reinforced. And if you do own guns, take proper care of them.

Most store their guns unloaded, which is technically responsible ownership, but it sort of defeats the whole idea of “being prepared at a moment’s notice.” Maybe a minute’s notice is enough in some cases, but a decent psychopath can have a clip full of bullets in you before you have any idea what’s going on, even if your gun is sitting loaded just a few feet away.

Also strange is that everyone thinks that in an emergency, they’ll be a hero. No one thinks they will freeze up, or stumble, or fumble around, or piss themselves, and certainly all of you would be able to react quicker when being surprised than the person who probably had their weapon pointed at you from the moment you saw them.

The fact is, owning a gun doesn’t make you any less likely to be the victim of a crime, nor will anything short of sitting in your home, day and night, holding a loaded gun with the safety off. It is also interesting to point out that one commonly stolen item in America happens to be firearms.

Which leads me to one final note. I’m sure you’ve all seen this:

Just in case my neighbor ever puts up such a sign, I came up with my own:

The FBI raided the homes of a number of anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. The Activists are planning demonstrations against the FBI. Is this a sign of a growing American police state? Former Reagan official Paul Craig Roberts argued that the US government is establishing in the mind of the public that anyone who criticizes the War on Terror is aligned with terrorists. He further argued that under the rubric of terror the government has stripped American's of their civil liberties.

Anti-war activist Mick Kelly whose home was raided, sees the FBI raids as harassment to intimidate those who organize war protests. I wonder if Kelly is underestimating the threat. The FBI’s own words clearly indicate that the federal police agency and the judges who signed the warrants do not regard antiwar protesters as Americans exercising their Constitutional rights, but as unpatriotic elements offering material support to terrorism.

“Material support” is another of those undefined police state terms. In this context the term means that Americans who fail to believe their government’s lies and instead protest its policies, are supporting their government’s declared enemies and, thus, are not exercising their civil liberties but committing treason.

As this initial FBI foray is a softening up move to get the public accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time. But next time the FBI will find emails on his computer from a “terrorist group” set up by the CIA that will incriminate him. Under the practices put in place by the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be declared “enemy combatants” and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other corrupt American puppet state – Canada perhaps – to be tortured until confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.-It Is Official: The US Is a Police State

From the institute that has found the sun to be hot and the ocean to be wet, the people at Pew have released the results of a survey that shows atheists score higher than believers of any faith on a test of religious knowledge. While the actual Pew study can be seen here, the Pew site has been down periodically due to heavy traffic. You may find this story useful, and since it’s from Fox News, you know it’s accurate.

So the question is a matter of causality: are people atheist because they have more knowledge? Are atheists more knowledgeable about religion because they’re just more intelligent? It’s tough to say, because atheists tend to have a higher level of education, which is itself of questionable causality (are atheists just smarter, or does the education lead to atheism?).

Maybe if I want a real challenge, I should start a series of posts called “Stump the Atheist.”

Also, I have a request for the Christian readers out there: read your Bible. And I don’t mean passages. Sit down, begin with Genesis, and work your way through The Revelation of John. You can skip a book if you like, but go back and read it at some point. Don’t leave a single page, verse, or word unread. I don’t even care what translation you use, it's all pretty much the same (I would know, I’ve read the entire Bible in several translations, even the wretchedly awkward KJV; I personally recommend the NIV, NASB, or my personal preference, the Oxford Annotated Bible).

G. Edward Griffin discusses the US monetary system, fiat money, legal tender and the value of silver and gold.

Idaho State Representative Phil Hart explains the "Idaho State Silver Gem Act" that he authored and plans to re-introduce next year. The Silver Gem Act allows the State Treasurer to sell and accept silver medallions for people to use any way they wish. Silver transactions with the State would be penalty and premium free. The silver would be set at market value.

The benefits of the Silver Gem Act are:

• Silver can be used as an alternative currency, outside of the banking system

• Jobs will be created in the metal refining industry in Idaho

• Silver- and gold- are a protection against inflation for both the public and Idaho State

The Idaho Silver Gem Act serves as a model that other states and local governments can use. If the bill passes, people can use silver with confidence because the government of Idaho will accept it, too. The Idaho Silver gem Act will also help to prevent possible federal precious metal confiscation.-Silver Shines as an Economic Solution

Guns are keeping the University of Texas safe, until the damn state goons had to step in and try to stop him. Why won’t these pigs just quit risking their lives standing in the way of every crazed shooter’s plans and just let us live in lawless peace? No one was hurt but the gunman, so what’s the big fucking deal, am I right anarchists?

Taking bets on the gunman’s ideology. I will root for the home team and take “extreme left-wing socialist” in the pool. Get your guess in before we know more, or it won’t count (no cheating).

As the disintegrating entity known as The United States of America goes into the proverbial "dustbin of history" because of fiscal irresponsibility, greed, sloth, avarice, and apathy, we in The League of the South remind you all that over a decade ago we told you what was going to happen. In fact, in our Declaration of Southern Cultural Independence, we spoke on behalf of our people (most of whom were too busy to listen at that time) and warned them of what was ahead. If you are still today pinning your hopes on reforming Washington, DC, then please take a few minutes and read the words below. Then, if you still think the present system can and should be reformed, by all means get to work at it. For those of you who see that the DC system cannot be reformed, then we ask you to join with us in creating a Southern republic in which liberty and prosperity can thrive once again.

In short, we're asking you to begin thinking and acting "outside the box." On the one hand, if you stay in the current box, which the corrupt Establishment wants you to do, you will go down with the current system. On the other, if you indeed step out of that box, you will see opened up before you the possibilities of a bright future for you and your progeny.

Monday, September 27, 2010

If Marc Faber had to choose one asset class for the next 10 years it woud be gold. Cash and US treasuries would be be his least preferred decennial investment. US equities would be a reasonable choice for wealth protection, though not necessarily grow much when adjusted for inflation.

...

Dr Faber pointed out that with the US so deep in debt the Fed thinks it cannot allow asset prices to drop below a certain point because that would devastate the balance sheets of the banks with debt deflation. But Dr Faber holds that in the long run this is just rolling up another crisis for the future that will destroy the US dollar and cause an even bigger financial crisis.

Declaring himself the ‘most pessimistic of forecasters, nobody is more pessimistic than me’ Dr Faber outlined a scenario in which the dollar has to be replaced by another unit after a future inflation, and holders of cash and bonds lose virtually everything in the process.

The "America" that so many of us have taken for granted for so many decades is literally disintegrating right in front of our eyes. Most Americans are still operating under the delusion that the United States will always be "the wealthiest nation" in the world and that our economy will always produce large numbers of high paying jobs and that the U.S. will always have a very large middle class. But that is not what is happening. The very foundations of the U.S. economy have rotted away and we now find ourselves on the verge of an economic collapse. Already, millions upon millions of Americans are slipping out of the middle class and into the devastating grip of poverty. Statistic after statistic proves that the middle class in the United States is shrinking month after month after month.

This horror story happened in Tampa, Florida. I suppose any job involving ropes and machines is dangerous, so I won't be applying for any of them soon. I once had a dream where I had a rope tied around my neck and a machine was pulling it tighter and tighter and I knew it was gonna strangle me (though I don't think my dream was heading to decapitation) and while that was happening I had the thought that there was no God. Why do we only seem to come to the conclusion that God can't exist when something bad happens to us personally, when we could come to the same conclusion by just picking up a newspaper any day of the week?

Anyway, too bad the poor guy can't just go to the tinsmith for a new head.

After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin. -from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Also, is the Tin Woodman (Nick Chopper) the same person after receiving his new head? His body parts were replaced one by one until finally he was all tin.

Tea Party conservatives looking for a path back to limited government need look no further than the Texas congressman who has dedicated his entire career to upholding the Constitution with no exceptions.

Voluntarism is the belief that government is coercion, and because coercion is bad, government is therefore bad. Voluntarists suggest, instead, that all things should be privatized and sold as a consumer good. Those who cannot provide for themselves, I am told, are to look for private charity.

My question is: how can society be voluntary if I would never voluntarily live in a society where a person’s only recourse in poverty is to crawl into the slimy arms of the church?

Moreover, why would an atheist ever want to live in a society where services like education would no longer be in the hands of a secular power, but instead in the clutches of the church? How is having non-religious options eliminated anything but religious coercion through the removal of non-religious competition?

I just linked to Roderick Long's blog at another post (which soon had a predictable anti-libertarian Ginx comment attached) but found an interesting take there on Robert Rodriguez's Machete. Long sees "interesting libertarian aspects" in the film, including being in favor of open borders and the right to bear arms, as well as resistance to government.

The rich are only getting richer, a new report says CEO's of major US companies average two-hundred and sixty three times the average pay of American workers. And the CEO's who had laid-off the most employees during the recession are the ones who took home the biggest pay checks.

Where peace, prosperity and freedom reign -- a voluntary society based on mutual respect for each individual’s ownership of his/her own body and property.

Libertopia is an annual festival of freedom, community and art for sovereign individuals. It is a unique experience -- a three-day gala packed with renowned speakers, banquets, parties, films, music, art and social networking.

Over thirty leading thinkers in the movement for a voluntary society include philosophers, economists, political scientists, law professors, entrepreneurs, and artists who give short, informative, exciting speeches with ample time for question and answer interaction.

Democracy is seen as the only legitimate form of expression or decision-making power with very little explanation of how or why that came to be. Humans today live in democracies or in countries under economic and militaristic dominion of democratic countries. Given these two options, it seems reasonable to conclude democracy means freedom and happiness. Here in the United States, democratic indoctrination begins with grade school elections, morning flag adoration, and sing-song pledges. However, the existence of one status quo does not negate the past or future existence of other conditions, and we should apply our critical thinking the ways democracy posits itself as the necessary first condition of freedom.

When democracy frames our discussion and forces us to argue in its terms, all actions to change the socio-political environment must happen via its means and achieve only those ends it will sanction. For these reasons, democracy reproduces itself with little special effort from the ruling class. A democratic system of "majority rule" encourages the alienated and exploited class to feel like they have control while it actually remains safely in the hands of the alienating and exploiting class. Even the most obvious contradictions get overlooked because the system has equated its existence with freedom and so places its existence outside the realm of contestable ideas. By claiming itself as a priori or the first principle of individual and social liberty, democracy appears like a tolerant and pliable source of the public good beyond all scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the very notions of one man-one vote or "majority rule" imply that We the People have the power no matter how much evidence accumulates to the contrary. It follows logically that when The People don't affect changes in our system, we must not want to change it. Hypothetically, we believe in justice, freedom, etc. or we would not have formed a democracy. Since we freedom-loving, democratic people would naturally act to end oppression as soon as we found it out,it follows that if a policy, law or practice does not change then it must not truly oppress people. Clearly, this train of thought has not, does not and will never transport us to a genuinely free and equal society.

Yet rejecting this logic without adopting a more general critique of democracy leads us to another suspicious conclusion often voiced by progressive, liberal factions in the United States. It sounds to the tune of, our government fails us because we the people are too apathetic, or too unaware, or too stupid, or too anything at all to yield our immense power as we ought. If we progressives could only mobilize, inform, or educate the public, then everything would work out beautifully. And so one sees presumably intelligent people tieing themselves in knots, trying to reform a system that in its best and most functional form can only hope to oppress everyone, equally, an equal percentage of the time. Again, the ruling class can rest easy as long as we place blame on ourselves and not them for our alienated position in modern society and that will continue until we realize the intrinsic flaws in the concept of democracy itself and refuse to reproduce it.

We reproduce democracy by supporting it with our vote and our daily subservience to the outcome of elections. If you understand that democracy will never let you act outside its narrow parameters and you accept our critique of majority rule, then voting and elections merely serve to reaffirm and legitimate state power no matter how one votes. In voting, you might initiate or overrule any policy, practice, or person except the system itself. For that reason the ruling class of a democratic government as whole finds no real threat in suffrage, even though individual politicians might suffer public disfavor.

Many political historians have pointed out that government extended suffrage to disenfranchised groups during periods when it needed mass support to accomplish some end, usually militaristic, rather than during periods when the public demanded it most vocally. It's the classic, if ya wanna get a little, ya gotta give a little strategy. Furthermore, providing suffrage enabled the government to channel the energies of mass movements that might have posed a real challenge to state power into a safe form of action--voting--that reduced the speed and magnitude of the desired changes while simultaneous reproducing democracy. The major suffrage movements in the United States only succeeded in making races and women "free" from official marginalization to engage in a system of marginalization. As a result of their efforts, all United States citizens have an equal right to participate in an oppressive system and hope it works out in their favor. In fact, an astute observer would see any public debate about who can or cannot vote as a red herring. The government uses voting to mitigate minority demands and sap the energy building around direct action. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and where there's suffrage, there's motivated marginalization.

When we swallow the government's bait by voting, we give them the power to reel in our potential to take control over own lives in their full breadth and scope. Elections tend to put people in passive mode, to offer salvation through belief in majority wisdom rather than through self-directed action. A division between leaders and followers develops where voters stand aside as spectators of their own government, not agents in their own right. Political systems of all types exclude the opportunity for direct action, but democracy's insidious ability to reproduce itself as a restrictive system while continuously incorporating more people into its "let freedom ring" rhetoric makes it especially sneaky.

Yields are low, unemployment up, CPI numbers are down (and under some metrics, negative)—in short, everything screams “deflation”.
Therefore, the notion of talking about hyperinflation now, in this current macro-economic environment, would seem . . . well . . . crazy. Right?
Wrong: I would argue that the next step down in this world-historical Global Depression which we are experiencing will be hyperinflation.

Most people dismiss the very notion of hyperinflation occurring in the United States as something only tin-foil hatters, gold-bugs, and Right-wing survivalists drool about. In fact, most sensible people don’t even bother arguing the issue at all—everyone knows that only fools bother arguing with a bigger fool.

A minority, though—and God bless ’em—actually do go ahead and go through the motions of talking to the crazies ranting about hyperinflation. These amiable souls diligently point out that in a deflationary environment—where commodity prices are more or less stable, there are downward pressures on wages, asset prices are falling, and credit markets are shrinking—inflation is impossible. Therefore, hyperinflation is even more impossible.

This outlook seems sensible—if we fall for the trap of thinking that hyperinflation is an extension of inflation. If we think that hyperinflation is simply inflation on steroids—inflation-plus—inflation with balls—then it would seem to be the case that, in our current deflationary economic environment, hyperinflation is not simply a long way off, but flat-out ridiculous.

But hyperinflation is not an extension or amplification of inflation. Inflation and hyperinflation are two very distinct animals. They look the same—because in both cases, the currency loses its purchasing power—but they are not the same.

The woman was holding a protest sign in both hands and never laid a hand on anyone, but she's a mere peasant, not one of the ruling elite like John McCain, so of course the state's hired thugs can push her to the ground and it's not assault and battery. Merely lightly touch one of the clown-costumed thugs, however, and you've committed a serious crime:

Travis Lamont, the costumed government enforcer who assaulted Daniel Daley outside an Orlando bar on the morning of September 18, is 26 years old. His victim is 84 years old and uses a walker. Lamont, as a member of the state’s enforcement caste, was armed. Daley was not.

Eyewitnesses to the assault insist that the elderly man never harmed or threatened Lamont in any way. His “offense” was to grab the younger male’s shoulders to balance himself when he stumbled. This “assault” supposedly justified a violent attack in which Lamont body-slammed the elderly man head-first into the pavement.

In his report, Lamont claims that Daley “cocked his right hand back as if to throw a punch”; the officer “feared a physical attack was imminent,” to he “directed him [Daley] to the ground with an arm bar technique…. In the process of directing the subject to the ground, the right side/top forehead [of the victim] struck the pavement.” Apparently, Lamont “directed” the old man so forcefully that witnesses on the scene feared that they had just witnessed an act of homicide.

File-sharers in Russia are pushing to make Internet piracy legal and destroy its negative image. They have decided to follow the example of their European comrades by setting up a political party. And despite being a new phenomenon in the country, they are already putting pressure on Russia's music industry...

I’m sure some may wonder what I think is a good strategy to get rid of the capital-democratic system, and that if I’m going to refute someone else’s position, I should present my own. That’s fair enough, so here is my position on what needs to be done:

1. We need to help people regain the ability to trust and love one another.

2. We need to help people see the truth of our class society, and restore people’s class consciousness.

3. We need to rebuild the sense of community and the functions of society through the principles of mutual aid and self-management, creating safe spaces for people to flourish.

4. Protests should only be used to prevent the occupation of the safe spaces we’ve created.

5. Natural resources and human lives should be protected with directed sabotage against materials (never against people).

6. Perhaps most importantly, we need to understand our opponents: not the systems themselves (we know more than enough in those areas), but the individuals. We need to sit down with policemen and find out why they are oppressing people who fight for their own class interests. We need to sit down with managers and investors, and learn why they support corporations which thrive on child labor and prison slave labor. We need to explain to them where their interests lie. If we can convince people to stop supporting the beast, we can hopefully win the battle without fighting.

Anarchists are creative people. Their imagination, in particular, is quite a powerful engine of fantasy. Anarchists are also intelligent, though clearly not versed in history and geopolitics, or at least they have allowed their ideology to get in the way of the pragmatic reality surrounding their preferred method of societal structure.

What particularly shocks me is the number of anarchists who claim to be atheists.

At a cursory glance, the two seem to go together. Atheism may be seen as the rejection of religious authority, and anarchy is the rejection of governmental authority. But that isn’t what atheism is to me. To me, atheism is the lack of evidence for any gods. In my eyes, this lack of the divine strips the very real human religious figures of any authority they may attempt to wield.

To me, religious figures are nothing but charlatans who derive their power from the ignorance of fools.

Government has no shortage of charlatans, especially throughout history. In fact, government and religion were usually indistinguishable in the past. From the god-kings of Pharaoh, Alexander, and the Caesars to the theocrats who ran Europe during the Dark Ages, it would have seemed impossible to most people in the past to imagine anything different.

But a funny thing happens, from time to time. In the modern age, we call it “secularism:” the idea that religion ought to play no part in governance. It’s a relatively rare idea, one which only gained a foothold a few times, and it has always stumbled along the way. Despite the perils of its arduous journey, secularism limps on against the might of religious authority.

As an atheist who studies history and sees our past not as a time far removed, but as events that occurred due to the actions of people who are very much the same today, I am troubled by the attitude of anarchists towards the secular state.

I always expect the usual conservative onslaught, the constant attempts to ram whatever dogma is en vogue this week down the throats and up the asses of every citizen… and yet secularism finds a strange enemy in certain corners of American thought, corners that are particularly ripe with the cynicism all democracies require in order to function. Democracy loses a valuable, criticial thinking ally in the anarchist.

There has never been, nor will there probably ever be, a group of people who did not have religion. Many people exist who lack what we would call a “government,” but religion is ubiquitous. Among people without a government, religion is the ultimate authority. This is not how I want it to be, but it is reality.

Somalia is a classic example of anarchy gone wrong, but why not look elsewhere? There are other pockets of the world where bureaucracy doesn’t exist, where “constitution” is nothing more than your ability to stomach the untreated water in your small village.

In the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, anarchy has “worked” for generations. Small tribal groups, many of them nomadic, dot the harsh landscape. If you asked them, most of these people wouldn’t know what “country” they live in.

On a good day in these regions, girls can’t go to school (if there even is a school available for boys) and women are stoned to death for being raped. On a bad day, outsiders bombard them with weaponry that is centuries ahead of their own, killing thousands.

This is anarchy. This is what happens when power is deferred away from a governing body that is bound by restrictions while being simultaneously empowered by the collective accomplishments of its protected citizenry. When the secular state crumbles, charismatic demagogues no longer have to worry about those pesky limits on what they can do with their authority.

Authority never disappears, it only changes form.

The secular, democratic state cannot eliminate religion, nor can it prevent corruption when it is tacitly winked at by voters. However, corruption and abuse of authority are not functions of the state, but are instead elements in human society that exist independent of any governing body.

Perhaps most troubling is that the rejection of a democratic, secular state is little more than a manifestation a people’s lack of faith in themselves.

One final note. Perhaps the most empty “fact” touted by anarchists is that “the state” is responsible for more deaths than anything else in the world. This emotionally loaded claim is strangely parroted by atheo-anarchists who will gleefully try to pronounce (in another debate, of course) that religion is the cause of most of the suffering now and throughout history.

It can’t be both, and since there is no statistic going back to the beginning of time (for either governments or religion), perhaps it might be best to take a look at what is actually killing people today.

Statistically, war is not the leading cause of death, nor is capital punishment or police abuse. Cars are much more dangerous than “the state,” and even those two combined cannot hold a candle to disease. Heart and lung problems caused by our own lifestyles blow all other causes of death out of the water. Even in this time of war, a person is more likely to be killed by a friend or relative than by “the state.”

To put a human face on our ancestors, scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute used sophisticated methods to form 27 model heads based on tiny bone fragments, teeth and skulls collected from across the globe.

I had to include an insane comment from the above link. Why do such lunatics consistently have caps lock on when typing their crazy comments?

THESE IDIOTIC SCIENTISTS ARE WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! THESE ARE NOT OUR ANCESTORS, OR ANY ONE ELSE'S ANCESTORS. I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING THIS OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF STUPID SCIENTISTS WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT SOME DUMB PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS NON-SENSE. THESE ARE NOT HUMAN ANCESTORS AT ALL. THEY ARE PRE-HUMAN BEINGS, AND THEY WERE HERE BEFORE WE WERE. WE DID NOT BRANCH OFF FROM THEM OR ANYONE ELSE, NOR ARE WE DESCENDANTS OF THEM, PRIMATES, FISH, BIRDS, SNAILS, SEA SLUGS, OR ANYTHING ELSE. WE ARE AN INDIVIDUALLY CREATED BEING, JUST AS THEY WERE. THEY WERE ONE OF THE FIRST IN A LONG LINE OF EXPERIMENTS. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE/WERE. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. WE ARE ALL CREATED INDIVIDUALLY, AS A SEPARATE ENTITY/BEING UNTO OURSELVES.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

A group of activists dressed in 'piggy' suits have visited one of Moscow's biggest chain supermarkets 'Auchan' to see if expired food products were being sold. The 'pigs' found out-of-date yogurts, drinks, rotten fruit and vegetables. The slogan of the activist group is: "These products are for pigs! Beware - expired!" They plan further action in different locations around Moscow, promising to film their findings and post them online.

This is a song for a growing and powerful movement. States declaring unconstitutional Federal laws null and void. They have the power. The Tenth Amendment. It is their duty to resist the tyranny. It is happening and we should all take part. Freedom is ours to keep and earn over and over. Vigilance. Patience. Collaboration. Patriots.

Poll ratings show approval levels for the major political perps, meaning the President, Congress, each of the two major parties, at levels so low as to be tantamount to loathing. But while the Tea Party has become a force to be reckoned with by tapping into this wellspring of discontent, those on the left who are unhappy with the lump of coal the Administration and the Democratic party has put in their stocking have no outlet.

To prove that all my yelling, “Buy silver now, or you’re a moron!” has paid off, silver is getting a lot more press coverage lately, like the headline “Silver Hits ’80 Level; Gold Sets Fresh High,” which appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal’s “Money and Investing” section.

The reason that gold at $1,271 was hitting new record-highs, but not silver, is that silver, at $20.74 per ounce, is only at the highest price since October 1980, which is almost exactly 30 years ago.

Suddenly, I feel myself wanting to launch into some hyperventilating, rabid recommendation to buy silver, waxing overly-enthusiastic about silver as some “bargain investment of the century” because of any of a dozen reasons right off the top of my head, and probably many, many more if I were smart enough to understand their significance, which I can only barely sense, even though people are screaming at me, “What is it that you don’t understand, you moron? We’re been over this a dozen times!”

Esteemed economist John Williams from shadowstats.com and Peter Schiff discuss the merits of owning precious metals. Gold and silver as a hedge - as an insurance policy - against the increasingly certain, impending economic apocalypse. Williams cites $7,500 as being the CPIU inflation adjusted actual value of gold TODAY. $436/oz. is cited as the CPIU inflation adjusted value of Silver. Both agree the sky is the limit on precious metals as the Fed monetizes debt and the system as we know it begins to fall apart at the seams. God help us all. Buy silver and gold TODAY as some measure of protection for you and your family.

This project started after a dream I had a January night in Estonia in 2007. The idea behind it is simple: Send us a postcard from your country/city (or any postcard you want) to any of our two addresses in Austria and Estonia, writing in the backside a message of peace to the World. Feel free to write in any language you want!

Soon we want to start organizing expositions in different countries, and later on publish some books with the postcards you have sent. Help us continuing with this dream! Help us spreading a message of peace!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

...if Somalia ever really does decline, this is not an argument against the stateless society anymore than monarchies invading democracies is an argument against democracy. There are arguments against democracy to be sure, but losing a war to a superior invader from a more established and settled state is not one of them.

Discrimination faced by Palestinians living within Israel's borders remains one of the key sticking points in Middle East peace talks.

Umm al-Fahm is a town made up almost entirely of Palestinian Israelis - those who found themselves within the new border when Israel was created in 1948.

Israel's declaration of independence, the equivalent of a constitution, states that all citizens are equal but the one-fifth of the population who are Palestinian, believe they are less equal than others.

My mom has decided the air conditioner is costing her too much. She moved to a desert a few years ago, without thinking of the extra cost of surviving the heat of Summer. The air conditioner guy told her that if she wanted to save money, she should leave the thermostat set at about 85, then just leave it there. But she didn't follow that advice. Instead she was turning it off completely at night to "save money", then having to cool the whole house down again the next day. She would also decide periodically that 85 was too hot to tolerate, even with all the fans going in the house (and she has ceiling fans in just about every room) and so turn the air down to 70 or so.

Now she has a big bill. So when I visited recently and stayed overnight, I had to open the window in the guest bedroom when I turned in for the night. It tends to cool off significantly when the sun goes down, but without an open window, the heat just stays inside the house. On recent visits, however, I've had to suffer, nearly unable to sleep (I can't sleep when it's real hot) because the air was off, and even though I had the fan going, I had to leave the window closed. The reason was, right outside that window was a bubbling cesspool that stank like a MASSIVE OPEN SEWER (I had caps lock on there accidentally, but I think I'll keep it that way; it matches the magnitude of the stink). Mom's septic tank was in need of serious service, but she'd spend the money to fix it on a massive picture for the living room wall. It was only in the last few weeks that she finally had the tank pumped, so I was able to enjoy the refreshing cool breezes of the nighttime air and actually sleep instead of tossing and turning in a long, dark hellish nightmare.

Steve Biko had a saying: “The oppressor’s most powerful weapon is the mind of the oppressed.” The state’s ideological indoctrination is far from perfect. But all too many people are still successfully conditioned by the state’s legitimizing ideology not to see certain internal contradictions in the state’s claims, or to ask questions that would seem obvious to anyone not trained to suppress certain kinds of logical connections.

One example of a question that’s not asked, a logical connection that’s not made, is the tendency to judge the state by the professed intentions of its spokesmen rather than by its actions. Closely associated with it is the tendency to judge the state by its professed intentions, while judging private actors by their actions.

For instance, Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers recently argued that US Army PFC Bradley Manning should be considered guilty of murder: “We know for a fact that people will likely be killed because of this information being disclosed.”

You don’t think anyone “knew for a fact” that people would be killed when Bush initiated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? So why isn’t an American President guilty of murder when he commits troops to a war?

Lots of public figures have argued that the idjit preacher from Florida who wanted to burn the Quran on 9-11 would be responsible for increased bloodshed. Glen Greenwald asks, in response, whether “establishment-serving, power-worshipping” commentators “would ever in a million years use language like that to condemn American officials who have actually spilled enormous amounts of blood?” (“The pastor and cheap, selective concern for ‘blood-spilling,’” Salon, September 10).

As Alexander Berkman pointed out in “The ABC of Anarchism,” in response to people who wrung their hands over anarchists’ alleged bomb-throwing and violence: “When a citizen puts on a soldier’s uniform, he may have to throw bombs and use violence.” The commands of the state, by their very nature, depend on force and violence. If the state was not, as Poul Anderson put it, the agency that reserves the right to kill anyone who disobeys it, why — its commands would be mere suggestions.

It follows, Berkman argued, that “we are so steeped in the spirit of violence that we never stop to ask whether violence is right or wrong. We only ask if it is legal, whether the law permits it. You don’t question the right of the government to kill, to confiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty of the things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief, and scoundrel. ”

Critics of anarchism demonize a hypothetical stateless society on the grounds that it will be unable to completely stamp out violence and crime — implicitly assuming that the state is fully successful in stamping out those things.

No, sad to say, voluntary associations in a stateless society wouldn’t be able to prevent a hundred percent of murders, robberies, and rapes. Unlike the state we live under now, which guarantees 100% effective crime prevention or your money back. Seriously, if you call 911 to report that a guy with a hockey mask and a hook for a hand is fiddling around with your back window screens, the state is under absolutely no legal obligation to get cops to your house before he eviscerates you and hangs you in the freezer. It’s not like you’re the customer or anything.

Never mind, as we saw above, that the state itself actively engages in murder, robbery and rape.

And this doesn’t just refer to those other, bad states, the official enemies of the good guys in the United States government — as bad as their death tolls have been. After WWII, the U.S. government itself was the world’s biggest job retraining program for Nazi war criminals. Left-wing resistance movements throughout the European and Pacific theaters were divested of the ground they held at the end of the war, and in many cases former Axis collaborators were put in control of provisional governments installed by the Allies. In the ensuing decades, the U.S. has been an overflowing source of fraternal aid and assistance to right-wing death squads and military dictators all over the world. In Central America alone, the death toll from military regimes installed by the U.S. and death squads trained by the U.S. extends into the millions. Under Operation Condor in South America, a series of coups — starting with Brazil — extended over most of the continent. And then there’s Mobutu, Suharto …

We need to start judging the state by its actions, not its words. And we need to judge the actions of the state by the same standards we use to judge everyone else.

Friday, September 24, 2010

I was talking to my wife a while ago about how I am glad I don’t have the kind of posters on my blog that she does. She gets a lot of positive feedback, simple agreements, and kind words. She also gets people who criticize her, but it’s usually drowned out by the bevy of supporters she has accumulated.

And why not? My wife’s a great woman who deserves to have people stick up for her.

Personally, I’ve never sought this kind of feedback. I routinely comment on the blogs of people with whom I disagree, and the people who comment on my blog tend to be those very same people with whom I disagree.

To put it simply: I don’t frequent politically left-leaning or atheist blogs. Well, I sometimes comment on atheist blogs, but I definitely don’t want anything to do with liberal blogs.

Why?

Liberals have nothing intellectual to offer me. I have absorbed and internalized as much liberalism as is humanly possible. I know the arguments, and I am certifiably the most liberal person I have ever met. I’m so liberal… how liberal are you?… I’m so liberal, I don’t trust Obama’s white half. I didn’t vote for Obama, but I would have voted for that African Socialist that Republicans have been talking about for years… if only he existed…

I have little in common with my ineffectual, castrated Femacrat sisters out there. They revel in political correctness, which is about as gay as it gets. The focus is inevitably on the words I use, not taking into account the fact that I support gay marriage, gays in the military, even gays in my living room (I seriously have no idea what color drapes to get…). What a witless war of words these wailing warriors wage.

The thesaurus is indeed underused, but nothing came up when I looked up “faggotry,” and none of them will help me think of a synonym…

Moreover, I have nothing to gain reading the opinions of people who agree with my basic principles, especially from spineless wimps who have been politically impotent for my entire adult life (plus at least two decades prior). As far as I can tell, no liberal has anything to offer me intellectually (though about my drapes…).

Conservatives, on the other hand, are a wealth of novel information. First of all, there are many different types. Whereas there’s only one type of liberal (the “please don’t hurt me, I’m a feckless coward” kind), there are many brands of conservatism.

Yet, what amazes me is that even though there is more diversity among conservative ideologies, they lockstep and work as one much better than their liberal opponents.

What it comes down to is passion. Republicans are the party of passions, and they absorb so many different subgroups. Libertarians, law-and-order traditionalists, gun lovers, extreme fundamentalist Christians, militant atheists, Pro-Lifers, supporters of capital punishment, the mega wealthy, the dirt poor, hard working blue collar laborers, suits who vacation on their own private islands… it’s really an odd cross section of my country, like an American id.

So even though several of these ideologies are incompatible, it’s okay. The Republicans win by giving the most passionate people a platform to spew their idiocy, because passionate people vote, and votes count regardless of how dumb someone is.

What’s more, Republicans have no problem saying one thing while doing another. Look at “financial responsibility.” The only balanced budget in the last 30 years was during Bill Clinton’s last year. In fact, the lion’s share of our national debt is a direct result of Republicans, not Democrats. But Republicans run on a platform of “fiscal responsibility,” why?

Because Republicans are smart enough to be able to do two things at once. They say what people want to hear, and do what they wanted to do all along. It’s like patting your head while rubbing your tummy, only Republicans are rubbing out the middle class while patting themselves on the back.

Another thing I envy in Republicans is that they get their way. I like that about them. If I were a fan, I would root for the Democrats, but if I was a betting man, I’d have to side with the Republicans. Republicans play to win, Democrats think it’s how you played that counts. In this respect, Democrats make me want to grab them by the shoulders, smack them in the face and say:

“If you don’t win, I’m going to chain you to a radiator until the next election, do you hear me? Quit crying and staring at the ground, you look at me when I’m talking to you! Now fucking get out there and kick some ass. There’s no participation trophy here, you under-aged sandwich.”

[Did he just call him… okay, you’re still paying attention.]

Never a 9/11 goes by that I didn’t wish Al Gore had been president… there sure wouldn’t be a PATRIOT ACT. Can you imagine the hell Republicans would have raised about a bill that intrusive, with that much bureaucracy? We certainly wouldn’t have gone into Iraq. We’ll never know what might have been…

But we got eight long years of Bush selling us shit we didn’t need, racking up debts that won’t even be paid off by the time his daughters die of cirrhosis. And what did we get? A several trillion-dollar fireworks show in the Middle East that is so cool, people go to jail when they try to show us.

I have so much to learn from Republicans, Libertarians, and right-wingers of every stripe. Republicans can teach me how to sell hiking boots to a paraplegic. Libertarians can teach me how to avoid having a politically viable ideology go completely ignored by the American public. Finally, right-wingers in general can teach me how to take the gloves off and go for the eyes (which is the most vulnerable place on a Democrat, since they have no balls).

Liberty On Tour attended a fundraiser held by The Human Solution for Ronnie Nauls, who was arrested by the feds (yes, the feds are still arresting medical MJ patients in Cali) for running a marijuana collective. We also had a chance to meet several other folks who had been harmed by the never ending war on you, oops, I mean drugs.

I do understand and believe marijuana has a medicinal value to it. Though individuals should be allow to decide, not government, what you put in your body. After all, you do own your body don't you?

I was getting all ready to write a long diatribe in response to another one of those anti-porn feminists who claims that all porn is rape. You know, the people who refer to those of us who disagree as male-identified, “fun feminists.” This “feminist” was particularly irritating me. It’s bad enough when we women judge each other, but this feminist was a man. And I really don’t appreciate some man labeling women as victims or oppressors because we don’t excoriate anyone who participates in porn.

But then I decided that, if I’m going to dive into the porn fray, I need to get a little more basic first. I need a good definition of pornography.

...

If a whole bunch of people think it’s yucky, then it’s obscene and nobody should be able to do it or watch anyone else do it. And if society thinks it’s yucky, but the person watching it can’t help but get turned on anyways, well then it is triply as bad and they should probably be put on a sex offender list somewhere.-What is Pornography?

Is porn an Illuminati conspiracy? This video's description says: "The work of the Pink Cross Foundation helping Porn Actresses to leave the industry and helping those addicted to be free.

Why you may ask?

1) Porn is a form of slavery
2) It is promoted by the Illuminati to dumb us down and break up the family
unit (One of Adam W's directives)"

"If any line got too much of a laugh, they'd take it out. They didn't want a big laugh; they wanted chuckles." - Tony Dow on Leave It To Beaver

I grew up watching lots of old reruns, including just about every episode of Leave It To Beaver. I guess because it really was more of a show aimed at kids than even a "family" show, it seemed pretty good to me then, though I don't think I ever laughed a lot while watching it; there are whole episodes of the show that didn't get any laughs out of me at all.

It would be a mistake...to consider La Boétie a firebrand intentionally inciting to revolt against oppression. He has taken every precaution to prevent the application of his thinking to the government of France. His terms of deference are too sincere to permit any notion of hypocritical subservience. The truth is he was not a rebel. We know not only from his words but also from his judicial record that he was the declared enemy of violence. His method of redress against dictators is much more subtle and effective than violence, and might be substantially described as "passive resistance." He sought political reform not by overt deeds involving bloodshed, but by a refusal of obedience to the orders of tyrants.

Étienne de La Boétie: ANTI-DICTATOR

It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty arouses in the hearts of those who defend it; but who could believe reports of what goes on every day among the inhabitants of some countries, who could really believe that one man alone may mistreat a hundred thousand and deprive them of their liberty?The people are responsible for their enslavement. Who would credit such a report if he merely heard it, without being present to witness the event? And if this condition occurred only in distant lands and were reported to us, which one among us would not assume the tale to be imagined or invented, and not really true? Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it. If it cost the people anything to recover its freedom, I should not urge action to this end, although there is nothing a human should hold more dear than the restoration of his own natural right, to change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so to speak. I do not demand of him so much boldness; let him prefer the doubtful security of living wretchedly to the uncertain hope of living as he pleases. What then? If in order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to long for it, if only a simple act of the will is necessary, is there any nation in the world that considers a single wish too high a price to pay in order to recover rights which it ought to be ready to redeem at the cost of its blood, rights such that their loss must bring all men of honor to the point of feeling life to be unendurable and death itself a deliverance?

Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will increase and blaze ever higher as long as it finds wood to burn; appeasement is useless. Yet without being quenched by water, but merely by finding no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a flame. Similarly, the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any violence they are simply not obeyed, they become naked and undone and as nothing, just as, when the root receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies.

If you’re a true patriot, buy cigarettes. Nothing is more heavily taxed. Think of our national debt and get puffing. With a little luck, we’ll die before we have to pay it off.

Politicians aren’t talking like that because they’re idiots; they’re talking like that because they know we’re idiots.

If over half the country is depressed, should happiness be diagnosed as a disease?

When America is faced with problems of vast importance, we settle for half-vast answers.

Technology can rid society of drudgery, but not drudges.

Slavery is not necessarily racist. Even the word “slave” derives from the white, Slavic people who were sold into captivity. Everyone knows you can get cash for Czechs.

I wish Republicans would stop thinking of it as “abortion” and instead think of it as “capital birth control.”

Who answers when God asks, “Why am I here?”

Obama and Jesus have some things in common:
- Jesus could turn water into wine; Obama can turn water into Kool-aid.
- Jesus walked on water; Obama built a platform on absolutely nothing.
- Jesus was hung on a cross; according to Michelle, Barack is also hung.
- Jesus was despised by Pharisees, a group of ultra-fundamentalists who took the Old Testament too literally; Obama is... well, you know.

How I grow bored of election years;
Shiny new puppets, same puppeteers.
Voting by loathing,
Sheep in wolves’ clothing,
With whom would you like to have beers?

Every single day more Americans are getting sucked out of the middle class and into soul-crushing poverty.

Unfortunately, most Americans don't really care because it has not affected them yet.

But this year, millions more Americans will discover that the music has stopped playing and they are left without a seat at the table.

...

There is a tsunami of poverty sweeping the United States, and somebody better wake up and do something about it. More handouts will help people get by in the short-term, but there is no way that the federal government can financially support tens of millions more poor Americans.

How long is it going to be before the "safety net" simply collapses under the weight of all this poverty?

The path we are on is not sustainable.

The economy is falling apart, and somebody better wake up and do something before even more Americans find themselves drowning in poverty.

Is Finland, recently voted the best country in the world, a social democratic paradise? An interview with Kaj Grussner

Progressives in America are often keen on promoting the European welfare state as an argument for big government, not least in the healthcare debate. They point to European countries, often the social-democratic Nordic countries, as role models, with their universal healthcare, public school system, generous social-safety net, and all the happy people who live there.

This line of argument got a significant boost when Newsweek proclaimed that Finland was the best country in the world to live in, closely followed by Sweden and Switzerland. And of course they are happy. After all, there is no poverty in these great countries, the populace is educated, and people generally don't have a care in the world, because the benevolent government is always there to solve every problem.

Many people have tried to dispel this myth, but it still persists. I don't presume to be able to put this issue to rest, but there are some things that should be known about this mythical utopia, the "best country in the world" — Finland.

I get mail. Email and snail mail. Garish junk mail and frantic email in ALL CAPS and tastefully crafted letters on beige faux linen stationery with ornate letterhead in scented envelopes. Mail from Democrats. Mail from Republicans. Mail from Libertarians. Lots and lots and lots of mail.

The message doesn’t vary as widely as the quality of presentation. It does vary, mind you, but only in the little things. The Democrats want to stop the Republicans from taking control of Congress. The Republicans trumpet that allegedly watershed event (it’s been four whole years!) as their most cherished goal. The Libertarians are running a sweepstakes. The prize? A free country!

The big message, the message all these parties and candidates have in common, is that they all require our assistance to make these things happen. Send money! Plant yard signs! Attend rallies! And most important, above and beyond all other things, vote!

It all sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? But I have a better idea. How about instead of working ourselves into a righteous snit for the next month, culminating with the self-exorcism of our personal demons in the voting booth, we … don’t?

Let us now pause for a brief musical interlude: Civics Teachers’ Heads Exploding in B Minor. There, wasn’t that nice? Back to business:

If democracy is a religion (and it is — “the worship of jackals by jackasses,” as Mencken so indelicately phrased it), elections are its principal sacrament. Voting is communion, complete with miraculous Transubstantiation of the Most, in which a plurality or majority of ballots cast are magically transformed into the “consent of the governed.”

Upon this rock the entire church of state is built. Every nuance of the perpetual Black Mass we call “government” — every act of theft, extortion, brutality, murder, war read in solemn tone from the Liturgy of Realpolitik — justifies itself on the basis of this alleged “consent,” in turn symbolized by the stickers handed out across America to those leaving the polling place: “I Voted!”

And I concede this much: The political priesthood has a point. If you enter the church, if you kneel before the altar, if you swear your eternal fealty to Leviathan, if you accept the sacred ballot, make your mark upon it and place it in the magic box, how can you possibly not be bound up in and beholden to the miracle of counting the priests then perform?

All religions require a devil, though, and as always he’s in the details.

As of the most recent national election, the population of the United States stood at about 305 million. Of those 305 million souls, 131,257,328 — only 43% — cast ballots for president. Of those who voted, 69,456,897 — only 22.8% of the total population — voted for the “winner,” Barack Obama.

It’s plausible to argue that the 43% who cast ballots voluntarily bound themselves to the outcome, i.e. “consented to be governed” by the winner whether that winner was “their” candidate or some other. It’s not, however, plausible to argue the same of the 57% who either chose not to vote or were forbidden to do so. “The consent of the governed” is clearly a superstition, no matter how many electoral victories the priesthood yanks out of its magic boxes.

So, this November, I plan to join that 57% and sleep in on Sunday … er, Tuesday. If I feel the need to take up a religion, I’ll choose one that gets up to harmless activities like chanting at airports or handing out magazines door-to-door or doing good works for the poor, not a death cult like “government.”

C4SS News Analyst Thomas L. Knapp is a long-time libertarian activist and the author of Writing the Libertarian Op-Ed, an e-booklet which shares the methods underlying his more than 100 published op-ed pieces in mainstream print media. Knapp publishes Rational Review News Digest, a daily news and commentary roundup for the freedom movement.

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To be an individualist and libertarian is to understand that no one, anywhere, should ever be aggressed against by anyone, and that the state is the principal form of institutionalized aggression in our world.— Anthony Gregory

"Political tags, such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth, are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."-- Robert A. Heinlein

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."--Thomas Jefferson

"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast." - Mark Twain

"The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization." - Robert Anton Wilson